Lancashire’s new purpose-built mountain bike trails will be officially unveiled to the public on the Forestry Commission estate at Gisburn Forest, near Clitheroe on Saturday 19 September.
The facilities will include an easy eight kilometre ‘blue’ route for families and beginners and a 22 kilometre ‘red’ course for more experienced and expert cyclists.
The trails, which are set against the stunning backdrop of the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, include tricky downhill and boardwalk sections and also offer fine views over the nearby Stocks Reservoir.
Martin Colledge, from the Forestry Commission at Gisburn, says: “We’re excited that the state of the art mountain bike trails have now been completed and can’t wait to introduce them to the public. Because there are a range of trails we hope to make Gisburn a must visit outdoor destination for cycling families and experienced mountain bikers alike.”
The trails are part of the Ribble Valley Sports and Physical Activity Alliance (SPAA) and were completed with the aid of a £60,000 lottery grant from Sport England. £60,000 was also contributed by the project partners – the Forest of Bowland AONB, Ribble Valley Borough Council, Ribble Valley Strategic Partnership, United Utilities and the Forestry Commission.
Gisburn Forest Trail Builders, a group of enthusiastic riders from throughout the region has helped on a number of volunteer trail building days organised by the Forestry Commission. The group has contributed an estimated £15,000 of value to the project by hand building over 1,000 metres of new trail.
The hand built section of trail is very different in character to the machine built areas. Some visiting riders have commented that it is unique and their favourite section of new trail.
In addition, £60,000 was provided as in kind donations; including timber and stone from the Forestry Commission.
Anne Boyd, Sport England’s regional lead for the North West, says: “The trails offer a great sporting experience to all mountain bikers, from thrill-seeking downhillers to families enjoying an active day out. Our investment of Lottery funding in these superb facilities will help recruit even more people to this exciting and growing sport.”
Nigel Pilling from United Utilities, says: “The Forest of Bowland, stretching almost from Nelson to Lancaster, is designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The new mountain bike trail will open the forest up even more so that people can get out into the stunning landscapes whilst promoting a healthier lifestyle too.”
Gisburn Forest currently attracts around 30,000 visitors a year, of which 50 per cent of these are cyclists and mountain bikers. It is expected that the number of day visitors will increase to around 70,000 in two years because of the new bike trail development.
The Forestry Commission are working towards providing opportunities for year round visits, as well as developing bridleway and quiet road links that will encourage alternative starting points by cyclists.
As well as mountain biking, Gisburn Forest is also an ideal location for walking, wildlife spotting and picnics.
More information about Gisburn Forest can be found at www.forestry.gov.uk/northwestengland
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I’m going there on saturday. Looking forward to it. It will be even better in the dry.
awesome place, well worth a visit.
Been biking the old trails for years, can’t wait to try the new stuff. Well done to everyone who built this.
big dipper is great 🙂 in fact the whole lot is great!
Are you going to update my trail review now (nudge, nudge)? Think the current one is a weeny bit out of date.
Glad everybody’s been happy with it, especially the volunteer bit, been hard (ongoing) work but worth it.
Stumpy – come the 19th aye 🙂
Sorry, that was a bit premature, the press release isn’t even up on the forestry commision website yet 😉
so are all the posts in now then (properly up to date signposted… (i dont want to get lost…..lol
great work done there but went there last week and the trail is suffering from the weather & large volume of traffic allready.
the big dipper was chewed up pretty bad before its even officially opened.
the conditions are badly chewed up already, some surfaces are highly inappropriate and they have thrown sand down to try and save them.
the start of the roller-coaster is a mess, some signposts are missing, personally i thought it had good bits but sadly they were to far spaced apart and had to much double-track climbing between these interesting parts…
the car park hold no more than 20 cars so get there early to get a space else you’ll just end up ditching your car off the side of the road or on the bridge.
map and way markings are poor no idea how far round you are on the route. actually the two maps contradict each other.
overall IMO It has good points but sadly they are linked by boring double-track with some poorly chosen materials for the trail surface..
My fav part was the berms near the end, liked the climb from the “skills” bit up (horrid sticky mud and the one corner is blown out on the climb where people have got off and walked up) and the lower part of the roller-coaster (the first part was slippy sticky mud and just made it slimy and not fun!)
“the one corner is blown out on the climb where people have got off and walked up”
FFS! it really REALLY annoys me when people do that, so the trail builders must be absolutley livid about it – not only can people not be arsed riding uphill they can’t even be bothered to push along the trail, lazy feckers! Rode it a while ago and I thought it was great, the odd berm felt “wrong” but that’s probably my duff technique, well done to all involved, can’t comment on how it’s stood up to traffic as it’s a bit far for a regular ride for me.
Oh and the lack of signage may have something to do with the fact that it’s not officially open yet.
Judging it on what was there before it’s a massive improvement though it’s not perfect.
I rode there just after a map for the new trails was posted on here and it was very good. However I was there on Monday night and though the first section of volunteer built trail was brilliant a lot of the contractor built stuff seems very poorly finished. Some of the sections up from the quarry just seem to be bare clay that’s just turned to mud. Another section just after the only decent bit of old way marked singletrack is also just a mud bath now.
The rollercoaster seemed ok to me as long as I stayed off the brakes and I avoided the very muddy bit at the bottom by using the old route up the hill rather then staying in the bottom of the valley.
The blue graded section towards the end was very nice and seemed to flow perfectly.
I’m over the moon that the FC are opening forests to all users. But Donk, seriously, “not only can people not be arsed riding uphill they can’t even be bothered to push along the trail, lazy feckers!”, because someone can’t/may not get up a climb and walk it, makes them lazy. I walk the odd climb and I’m not ashamed, I especially resent being called “lazy”, which I am not. Lack of fitness and/or ability shouldn’t restrict anyone from having a go at a trail.
My 2 cents in. 😉
I don’t agree with the lazy comments (as my GF walked and she isn’t lazy) but she was off the trail and i was able to climb round her on the corner.
what is sad is the area designed to be ridden on is torn up by people walking when a little consideration to the route would have made the trail wider to allow a surface for people to walk on and room for people to pass walkers at this choke point.
currently the corner is a mass of sticky/slippy mud due to poor planning and rubbish trail surface materials.
Went up for a late evening blast the other week when late evenings were still an option without lights. I was really impressed to be honest – think they got the balance right on this one and I forgave them for crap waymarking as it wasn’t really ‘open’ as such – the big drop off and berms were good fun as predicted but to be honest the smaller bits – including some of the climbs – were really enjoyable and well paced. (My criticism of Lee Quarry is really that the climbs are just used as a ‘oh you’ve got to go uphill so this’ll do’ thing!)
GPS etc here http://connect.garmin.com/activity/10628915 – I’m sure I missed some good stuff out too!
Oh… and obirobkeno – I didn’t think that Lazy comment was about not riding – it was more about pushing OFF the trail and hence wrecking the corner by PUSHING in the wrong place!
DH is right the lazy comment was aimed at the people cutting corners.
That final blue section is brilliant! I thought blue runs were normally just fireroads, missing out all the good singletrack 🙂
But if you’re pushing and someone is coming up behind, you’ll move over to keep the trail clear. I don’t see it as such a huge crime.
Thanks for the feedback. Trail waymarking is coming but taking longer than we’d originally hoped, temporary signage is in place in the meantime. The initial problems with a couple of sections of trail have been noted and will be remedied over the next few months. Afraid we have been a victim of our own success as regards the car parking, we’ll try to sort this out as well asap.
DIG DAYS – every 2nd Sunday of the month, e-mail me at nigel.pilling@uuplc.co.uk for further info.